Programs

Fourteen Asia Pacific journalists travelled to Melbourne and Tasmania for a five-week program on reporting climate change and the environment. The program was funded by AusAID under its Australian Leadership Awards Fellowships scheme. The program involved journalists from Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Kiribati.

This program aimed to increase the journalists’ abilities to understand basic climate change science, source high quality information and understand key developments in mitigation and adaptation around the world and at home. The fellows completed two weeks of workshops on reporting climate change with environmental journalist and Monash University lecturer Mr Philip Chubb, in addition to a week of professional visits in Tasmania and attachments with news organisations in Melbourne.

During their time in Tasmania the fellows took part in a symposium entitled Environmental Politics and Conflict in an age of Digital Media, held at the University of Tasmania, with Senator Christine Milne and Professor Simon Cottle of Cardiff University’s School of journalism, media and cultural studies. The fellows were given the opportunity to interview scientists from the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and staff from the Australian Antactic Division (AAD) during a live cross to Casey Station in Antarctica. The program was facilitated in part by in-field study tour leader Adam Morton, senior environment editor at The Age newspaper.